Music on TV is about connection and collective energy, and we need more of it

There was a moment in Missy Higgins & Friends where I realised Missy Higgins had been a part of most of my adult life.

She was behind her piano singing ‘All For Believing’; the song that made the rest of us take notice. A song that to this day floors me with its complexity and depth. Years and many thousands of gigs later, the strength of her voice spoke to an adult life that had also been lived on stage.

Missy Higgins & Friends, a big event staged as a part of Ausmusic Month, tipped Higgins into icon status. Because that 90 minutes on screens in lounge rooms all over Australia – and laptop screens across the world – confirmed what we’d had an inkling of for a while: she is truly one of Australia’s great artists.

TV is funny that way. As someone who has lived her life largely evangelising about the songs I love on radio, it never fails to amaze me how differently that connection is felt when you can see and hear something beautiful. It connects in a different way.

It must be something about our senses and how we interpret the world; sizing up as much as we can through every possible avenue when the messages of these sonnets blast into our eyeline and wrap around our ears.

It’s seeing the kids that look like us reacting in real time to what’s happening in front of them.

I felt it again when the wail of Kasey Chambers stretched through the screen and grabbed my heart, as she sung her guts out in accepting her induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame. In a prime time commercial timeslot, we witnessed a life’s work of raw emotion, unflinching honesty and gobsmacking talent reach out and stop us in our tracks.

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It was a huge collective experience that live television embodies so breathlessly. We didn’t need to be in the room or at the show; this was coming to us. And to so many of us, at that.

Music on television is often talked about with the rose-coloured glasses of nostalgia.

The discoveries of Countdown well before the internet did the work of Molly. The looseness of a bleary-eyed share house on Saturday mornings with Recovery.

But through November we’ve been treated to a joyous reminder that it’s alive and well today.

The premiere of The Set took us into a lively house party with beloved Aussie artists but did something more. It put emerging artists like Angie McMahon, Kult Kyss, and B Wise squarely in front of a captive audience and confirmed what a golden age we’re currently in for Australian music, and how much punters back it too.

The exposure an on-screen appearance like this gives has knock on effects. It shows the web of support the local industry shows for both the established and new artists. It reflects the massive diversity of sound Australian music in 2018 can be proud of.

And, most of all, it speaks to an audience who – every time – respond ecstatically. Both to new voices, and to the soundtrack to your life. To the proud ownership of an artist you’ve backed, who wins that show stopping award.

To the joyous display; eyes, ears, and heart, of live performance coming to us.

TV is the modern-day campfire. And whether it’s watched through a screen on a table, or via a laptop in bed, the collective energy of seeing live music – our music - blaze out is something to be celebrated.